Sports Briefs

HOUSTON -- The numbers are starting to favor the Houston Comets: one more victory, one more championship.

The Comets started the playoffs as underdogs, but they beat the New York Liberty 59-55 Thursday night in Game 1 of the WNBA championship series.

This afternoon they will be in a familiar spot -- one win from their fourth straight title, a chance to remain the only champions the WNBA ever has known.

The Comets expect a fight, just as they got last year from the Liberty.

''They're not going to come in and give it to us,'' Comets center Tammy Jackson said. ''They didn't do it last year and we don't expect them to do it this year.''

New York has been Houston's championship series victim twice in three years and this time, they want to get it right.

''We're going to walk in and lift our heads is what we're going to do,'' New York guard Teresa Weatherspoon said. ''We can't allow this game (Game 1) to get us down. You do and walk into that arena in Houston, and you're dead.

''We gotta believe in the impossible when no one else does.''

It was Weatherspoon's impossible shot in last year's Game 2 of the championship series, a heave from beyond halftime at the final buzzer, that forced a final game for the title. The Comets don't want to be in that position again.

Rider, whose constant tardiness caused him to clash with his coaches in Atlanta last season and Portland before that, signed with the Lakers on Friday. He was waived by the Hawks on March 17. A 6-foot-5 guard, Rider provides the NBA champion Lakers, who have been attempting to trade Glen Rice, with another shooter.

The 6-foot-9, 260-pound Taylor spent his first three NBA seasons with the Clippers, where he averaged 14.8 points and 5.2 rebounds. He was a first-round draft choice out of Michigan in 1997.

Seles reaches Pen finals

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Monica Seles advanced to her fifth final of the year Friday, beating Nathalie Tauziat 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 in the Pilot Pen.

Tauziat, seeded third, has not beaten Seles in 10 tries, but did win her first set against the hard-hitting left-hander after Seles got off to a slow start.

''I just didn't feel good out there at all. I was giving away so many games during the first set,'' Seles said. ''Nathalie was catching the ball early on. She really had nothing to lose against me. I just kept telling myself to stick with it.''

Until she found her groove, Seles did a lot of backpedalling from Tauziat's solid service game.